


laugh it off

by kermit_the_frog



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter/Funhaus RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Grand Theft Auto Setting, Fake AH Crew, Guns, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Rating May Change, Slow Build, Swearing, Trans Character, or more accurately trans characters
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-02
Updated: 2017-08-08
Packaged: 2018-12-08 06:25:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,031
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11640807
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kermit_the_frog/pseuds/kermit_the_frog
Summary: Jeremy keeps telling Trevor that he likes his job. His job is to win illegal fights for bet money, which Trevor feels is wholly unsafe, and he's really not wrong. But his constant concerns and insistences that Jeremy should help him out in what he feels is a much safer job drives Jeremy to agree to a trial run.Trevor assures him he wont regret it, and, well, he'll see about that.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I've actually posted this here before a long time ago, but I've fixed it up and I think I can keep on a regular update schedule of every week, or maybe two weeks.   
> Anyway, enjoy.

Just one blow to the head and suddenly everything’s spinning. It only takes one punch in the jaw to make the mouth guard he wears every day feel foreign on his teeth, but he has no time to adjust. There’s a fist barreling towards his face. The air is heavy and his heart’s too loud.

Duck left.

Someone boos when the strike swings high over his head and his opponent wobbles. He put too much force into that punch. Jeremy’s eyes dart down to the man’s stumbling legs. What an idiot, but it’s not like he’s one to judge here. His face stings.

One swipe of his foot and the other man’s done for. Jeremy kicks out, catching the guy’s ankle. Pain flares up across his toes. Stupid, shitty kick. The guy goes down anyway -still reeling from his miss- and Jeremy dives. He hits wildly, blinded by sweat, hair, and the sound of his heart hammering against his chest.

“Stop!” The man cries, and Jeremy does. He waits for a moment, waiting for the words that signal the end of the fight. “You win.”

And just like that, all the adrenaline, the tunnel vision of the fight, drain away. Suddenly he can hear the cheers and boos of the screaming crowd and he’s aware of his shivering. The sweat soaking his back is sticky and cold. His head fucking hurts. Jeremy offers his opponent a hand and the man moves his arms from his face. Now that the fight’s over, the man’s no longer his opponent, just some guy. He put up a decent fight, though. Man he really can throw one hell of a punch.

Jeremy spits out his mouthguard, running his tongue over numb teeth, “You did good,” he assures, clapping the guy’s shoulder, but he just stares at Jeremy distrustfully. He must not get compliments often.

The two limp out of the, well it’s not quite a ring really, it’s just the empty floor space of a shitty basement. Jeremy smiles over at Trevor, who hurriedly jogs over to him, a fist full of bills in hand. “Don’t scare me like that, man.”

“Like what?” Jeremy grins, holding out a hand for his winnings.

“Like what?” Trevor sputters “You almost got knocked out halfway through the fight!”

“The guy got a solid hit in, what can I say?” Jeremy shrugs. Really Trevor worries too much, all safety this and precautions that. It’s a fight, sometimes you get hurt.

Trevor sighs, shaking his head, “Be more careful next time.”

Careful? What does that mean? Jeremy wins illegal, underground fights for a living. Nothing about his life is careful. But for Trevor’s sake Jeremy pretends, “Fine. I’ll be more careful. Now can you drive me home? I think I broke my toe.”

Trevor mutters about tiny, idiotic, boneheaded machomen all throughout the drive. Jeremy ignores him in favor of looking out the window into the street. The pavement shines with rainwater and the street lamps have halos from the fog in the air. The car thumps and bounces over potholes, splashing water over the road.

“...And your toe might heal, but what about-” Trevor grumbles.

“I’m fine.” Jeremey rolls his eyes.

The car stops. For a moment Jeremy feels like he’s going to get a lecture. Trevor would. Then he realises that they stopped right outside his apartment building. He grabs his things quickly, “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Do you need any help getting into your apartment?” Trevor asks. Jeremy begins to say no, but the keys are already out of the car and making their way into Trevor’s pocket. No point in saying anything now. Trevor’s coming in with him.

“I’ll hold your bag.” He says, while they both hoist themselves out of the car, “Less weight on your toe.”

“Okay,” Jeremy says. He passes the bag over. HIs toe doesn’t hurt and his bag isn’t heavy, but someone’s offering to carry it for him, why complain? “Thanks.”

“No problem.” Trevor smiles briefly. A quick, closed mouth acknowledgement. Humorless. Jeremy and Trevor have known eachother for pretty long, three years. They’re friends, kinda. Work friends sounds about right, although they don’t technically work together. They were close though. Close enough for Jeremy to know that Trevor was thinking, but not close enough for him to know _what_ Trevor was thinking.

“You don’t have to do this, you know.”

Ah. So that’s what he was thinking about. Another job offer.

“I know you say you like fighting-”

Here he goes again. _It’s safer. It pays better._

“-But you’re not gonna get hurt. You’ll get more money.”

Bingo.

“Trevor,” Jeremy begins, “I’m not interested.”

“Come on, it’s just like robin hood.” Trevor nudges him, “Steal from the rich and keep it. ‘Cause we’re the poor.”

Jeremy shakes his head, “I don’t have any moral problems with it.” Really he doesn’t. He couldn’t care less about some rich, skeevy business man. “But I’m not going to get murdered stealing silverware.”

“So you’d rather get pummeled to death for a couple hundred bucks.” He sounds calm, but Trevor’s gotta be pretty pissed. He hates bringing it up, but it didn’t happen to him. It happened to Jeremy. Trevor never got his skull caved in. Trevor shouldn’t hate talking about it. He had no right.

“Goodnight.” Jeremy says, tugging his bag back. Trevor’s fingers cling to the strap for a moment before he lets go all at once.

“Just think about it.” Trevor begs. Jeremy’s back is turned as he unlocks his door, but he knows the puppy-dog eyes. The _pretty-please-with-sugar-on-top_ pout. Yeah, Jeremy and Trevor have known each other a long time. "I promise you wont regret it!"

“I’ll see you.” Jeremy says. He pulls his stiff body through the doorway, shutting it behind him.

“Come tomorrow, okay?” Trevor calls from behind the door.

“Goodnight!” Jeremy yells back. Jesus christ, nurse Trevor and his matronly care for his one and only friend. What a loser.

“I’ll text you.” Trevor say, softly from behind the door. Then it’s silent. Jeremy looks out the peephole to make sure Trevor has left, and sees only an empty hallway. Good. Peace and quiet at last.

And the moment he’s alone, the pain sets in. All his muscles ache to the bone and his head is killing him. So that’s priority number one right now: Fix himself up

Or priority number two, he realises as Scooter, the cat he shouldn’t have, insists with his meowing.

“Hey, hey. Shh-” Jeremy urges, picking up his little fluffball and holding him close. “Hush, Scooter. Papa’s gonna feed you now.” Jeremy puts his cat down in favour of grabbing the food, “And papa’s gonna stop calling himself ‘papa’ because that’s a little weird.”

Scooter meows agreeably, headbutting Jeremy’s arm lightly.

“Now here you go,” Jeremy plops the tinned food in Scooter’s bowl. The cat purrs and starts licking up the food. “I love you.” He whispers, quiet enough that Jeremy isn’t sure Scooter heard. He considers saying it again, just to be sure but figures that Scooter knows even if Jeremy doesn’t tell him every day. So he goes back to previous priority number one: stop hurting everywhere.

A couple hundred milligrams of ibuprofen and a little bandage around his toe to keep it in place is really all he can do. His head still hurts like a bitch and his whole body is bruising like hell but there’s really nothing else for it, so he makes himself a sandwich. Who knows? Maybe video games are right and eating will heal him. At the very least he’ll feel a bit better with something in his stomach.

With everything taken care of, Jeremy goes to bed and scooter curls up by his side. The end of a day, just like the end of every other day.

But for some reason, this time Trevor’s offer rings in his head somewhere. Stealing stuff, easy money. Jeremy’s always had light fingers. You had to as a kid on the streets. But thirty bucks from a nobody’s wallet is a lot different than some rich son-of-a-bitch’s flatscreen.

Jeremy can’t help but think about it. A trial run couldn’t hurt? Helping out Trevor couldn’t be that dangerous. Trevor was a professional after all. Jeremy would never give up fighting but, on the other hand, some extra money never hurt anyone.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jeremy doesn't know why he he agreed to do this, but now he's standing here, underneath Eclipse Towers, ready to rob someone.

The dawn air smells like smoke and cool fog nips at his fingertips as Jeremy checks his phone for the millionth time with his ungloved hand.

_ Trev (2:42 am) -> Eclipse Towers _   
_ Trev (2:42 am) -> Apartment 23-4 _   
_ Trev (2:43 am) -> 11:00 _   
_ You (9:19 am) -> alright i’ll go _   
_ You (9:34 am) -> also why did you message me at two am????? _   
_ Trev (10:56 am) -> Uh… _

Well, it’s 11 o’clock now and Jeremy is shuffling from foot to foot just outside of the giant highrise apartment building that is Eclipse Towers. It certainly was an appropriate name, the building’s shadow covered the entire block. Jeremy looks around and gives a small smile to a man who’s looking at him funny. The people who walk in and out of this building all have collared shirts. Jeremy isn’t sure he owns a collared shirt. Maybe jeans and a t-shirt aren’t the best day-robbery gear. Fuck. How was he supposed to know what to wear? Where is Trevor anyway?

_ You (11:01 am) -> where you at??  
_ _ Trev (11:01 am) -> Apartment 23-4  
_ __ Trev (11:01 am) -> You’re late

Jeremy shoves his phone back in his pocket. One minute late. A single minute and of course Trevor points it out. Well he was here on time, at Eclipse Towers, just not in the apartment. How was he supposed to know that they weren’t meeting outside the building? He grinds his teeth from the growling mix of annoyance, nerves, and hunger all mixing in his stomach. He gets several odd looks when he walks into the elevator. It’s like these rich fucks have never seen a poor guy before. Or, he realises as he looks down, they’ve noticed that his shirt is inside out. And backwards. Whoops. 

Man, sleepy Jeremy’s an idiot.

So Jeremy has to stand there in an elevator full of people wearing a shirt that is on wrong two different ways, for an entire twenty three floors. Goddamnit. Eventually the lift comes to a halt with an ominous shudder and a pleasant ‘ding’.

He half stumbles out of the elevator, trying to subtly check if anyone is staring at him. He’s not sure that he was all that subtle actually. He might have just made him look a hell of a lot more suspicious than he did before. Oh man. Well, nothing to be done about it now. Just keep walking and look confident, like he’s supposed to be here and everything will be fine.

It’s only when he reaches the door that he realises there’s a problem. Fancy high-end apartment building, it’s gotta have a high tech security system. And cameras. Everywhere has cameras. Jeremy can’t just walk into some apartment showing his face to the world. No matter how shitty the police department is here, there’s no way they’ll ignore photographic evidence.

Jeremy pulls the phone out of his pocket so fast that he almost flings it into the wall. He catches it by his fingertips, thankfully. He couldn’t afford to get a new one. 

Trevor is one of his four contacts, so in a matter of seconds he’s got Trevor’s voice in his ear.

“Ye-llow?” Trevor answers, like an asshole.

“Trevor, how am I supposed to get into the apartment without people seeing my face?” Jeremy says, skipping all the usual pleasantries.

“What?” Trevor asks. What does he mean ‘what?’ Jeremy was being perfectly clear.

“Security cameras Trevor,” Jeremy squeezes the bridge of his nose. Honestly, wasn’t Trevor supposed to be a professional or something. God. “They record your face. How am I supposed to get in without the cameras recording? Or did you not think of that Mr. It’s-safer-to-steal?”

“Jesus Jeremy,” Trevor begins, sounding exasperated. Yep, total asshole. “You don’t go in through the door of 234, you go to 224, the apartment directly below.”  
Jeremy spends a moment spluttering into the phone, unable to find a way to properly express himself, “Hap-ba. Bap ap- W-wa. Nng,” He presses his hand farther into his forehead, “Why?” He finally concludes.

“All the cameras are broken in the 22nd floor’s hallway.” Trevor says like he’s told Jeremy this a thousand times before. He hasn’t. He’s never said anything about broken cameras, and an entire floor of them is a little weird. Or actually, no it’s not. This is los Santos. Of course all the cameras on floor 22 are broken.

“Alright, then how do I get from Apartment 224 to 234?” Jeremy asks.

“Just hurry up okay?” Trevor ends the call with that. Asshole.

Jeremy turns back around to the elevators and again he rides with people dressed much nicer than him- their shirts are on right side in and facing forward- but this time he rides down and only one floor. By now he’s far too irritated to care about the looks. Infact, he’s glad he’s robbing one of these rich pricks. Maybe he’ll ruin their suits so they have to wear normal people clothes for once. 

The lift dings and shudders again and Jeremy marches out. He walks straight up to door 224 and turns the knob. The door doesn’t budge.

For a second, he’s convinced that he must have gotten the wrong door. This must be 225 or 223 or heck, maybe he got off on the wrong floor entirely and it’s actually 214. But the more he stares at the little number, the more he has to come to terms with the fact that this door is locked. Jeremy’s beyond annoyance at this point. He knew he shouldn’t’ve come on this stupid little burglary of Trevor’s.

He sighs, reigning in his temper. Cool it. Just call him.

“Hey Trevor?” Jeremy says, his voice sickly sweet calm.

There’s a short pause before a breathless,”Yep,” crackles over the speaker. The hell is he doing in there?

“How am I supposed to get into apartment 224?”

“You pick the lock. Duh.” Trevor says like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. Maybe it is to a thief.

“Right,” Jeremy begins, still determinedly calm, “But I don’t know how to pick a lock.”

Trevor must laugh for at least five minutes straight. He’s just giggling into the phone, occasionally seeming to lose complete control and just straight up laughing, unable to get any words out. It’s just a lot of laughing and Jeremy trying to justify himself, fitting in short phrases like, “My first time,” and ,”Not everybody knows how to,” before Trevor completely drowns him out.

“You know what?” Jeremy says, “You can finish this job by yourself. I’m going home.”

That sobers Trevor up. The laughter immediately stops and Jeremy’s ear is instead flooded with apologies and ”I’ll come down and get you”’s. Much better.

He only has to wait a few minutes before he can hear the unmistakable sound of a lock being messed with. The door swings open with a “Fancy meeting you here!”  from Trevor. That was quick. Jeremy might be pissed at him but he’s got to admit that Trevor is good at his job. “Come on, shorty-”

“Wow, rude.”

“-With the pace you’re at the guy upstairs will be back before we’ve finished robbing the place.” Trevor finishes.

Jeremy follows, asking nervously, “When’s the guy we’re robbing coming home?”

“Oh, him? “ Trevor says, sliding open the balcony door, “He won’t be home until 7ish. I’ve been casing this place for a while. But, I wasn’t talking about him, I was more talking about Armageddon. Y’know, when the guy upstairs comes back to the earth?”

Jeremy snorts, following him. “Ha ha. Very funny.”

“You’re damn right.” Trevor hoists himself onto the balcony railing. Jeremy’s heart nearly stops. Trevor is  _ standing on a railing TWENTY TWO FLOORS FROM THE GROUND.  _ He’s standing on a thin railing. Twenty stories up. Standing. Admittedly, he’s also holding onto a rope that dangles from the railing of the next balcony up. Jeremy hadn't realized that when he first looked, and could anyone really blame him? But even with the rope he was still twenty stories up. How could Trevor ever think that this could be less dangerous than fighting? There was no chance of falling two hundred feet onto the pavement when a guy swung at you.

Jeremy just looks up at Trevor for a moment and says, “Nope.”

“What?” Trevor’s climbing up the rope now. He looks like a kid in gym class. Jesus christ, what if he slipped? Trevor would be paste on the road!

And Jeremy repeated, “Nope.”

Trevor pulls himself up over the railing of 234’s balcony. “What?”

“I’m not climbing that.”

“Don’t be such a baby!” Trevor yells back, as if Jeremy was freaked out about a two foot drop not a two hundred foot drop

“Fuck you.” Jeremy grabs onto the rope, looping it three times around his wrist before even attempting to pull himself up. He hates Trevor. Hates him. He can feel his hands shaking when he stands on the ledge. 

Don’t look down. 

Don’t look down. 

Shit. 

He looked down. 

“Oh fuck,” Jeremy feels dizzy all of a sudden. The ground is so far away and he’s going to fall. He’s going to fall. “Ah, fuck. Shit.”

“Geez,” Trevor  says, somehow unaffected by the  _ massive drop _ , “Maybe it’s for the best that you’re short. If you were any taller you’d be scared to look at your toes.”

“Ha ha ha.” Jeremy grits out, even his voice is shaking now. Fuck Trevor. If he survives getting up to that balcony, he’s going to throw Trevor off of it.

As it turns out, climbing the rope is just like gym class in middle school, only much higher up. He makes it up to the railing easier than he thought, maybe it was the fact that he was much stronger than he was as a twelve year old, or maybe the short joke had filled him with just enough spite to get Trevor within arms reach. Whatever the case he actually makes it. He didn’t become a ground pancake.

Jeremy’s legs nearly collapse beneath him in relief. His hands are still shaking violently.

“It wasn’t that bad,” Trevor begins. And it was, it really was ‘that bad’. It was worse. “Was it?”

“I hate you.” Jeremy says, and he’s serious. 100% serious. This better make him a shit load of money or he’s never speaking to Trevor again. 

Trevor doesn’t seem to be taking him seriously, because he just laughs and waltzes back into apartment 234. Jeremy follows him closely, keeping no more than a few steps distance between them.

“So you’re sure this dude won’t be back for a while?” Jeremy tries to make it sound like a  throw away question but really his biggest fear was that someone would open the door and realize what they were doing. They’d be dead before the cops were even called. Everyone in los Santos has a gun and more money means more guns. Better guns. Jeremy’s not the one exception, but he’s got a shitty, barely used pistol, no match for whatever gold-plated automatic Mr.Apartment-234 has.

“Yeah, like I said, he’s going to be gone until at least seven, that is if he’s even coming home tonight.” Trevor says, inspecting the painting on the far wall, “Do you think this is real?”

Jeremy glances up at the painting. It looks pretty familiar, like a famous painting or something, “Nah, probably not.”

“I could say it is though,” Trevor lifts it up off the wall, “But really, don’t worry about getting caught. I’ve been doing this for years and I’ve only been caught maybe a handful of times.”

“You’re not very good at this whole reassurance thing are you?” Jeremy grumbles. He looks around the room, rocking on his heels. “Uh, what should I do?”

“Just look for something shiny and take it.” Trevor stares intently at the painting he just removed from the wall. He mutters to himself quietly, barely loud enough for Jeremy to hear, “shouldn’t have brush strokes if it was just a print. I don’t know much about art forging but… It’s a good copy.”

Of course they end up taking the silverware. Really it’s not silverware, it’s goldware. It’s gotta be gold plated or something, nobody has the money to buy an entire set of golden knives. He’s also got about twenty faberge eggs scattered about his apartment -which is  _ huge _ . Who was this guy?

“Alright, but who needs four teapots?” Trevor asked as he carefully placed every one of them into his duffle bag.

“The same guy who has six jewelry boxes.” Jeremy follows Trevor’s lead and takes these as well. Each of them jangles from being overstuffed. “Seriously, his girlfriend’s only with him for the money, right?”

With all the money clearly spent on this place, the guy could have maybe paid for a designer. Everything was expensive as fuck, but it was all just thrown around the room, overcrowding everything. Who was he trying to impress? Jeremy was impressed, true, but who was he  _ trying _ to impress?

After a few hours and many duffle bags and suitcases full of almost anything that could fit-

“We’re not taking his cat.”

“But it’s probably purebred!”

“Trevor.”

“But-”

“No.”

“He fits!”

“That’s it, I’m out.”

“Okay, fine. Fine. No cat.”

-they’re ready to leave.

Without hesitation Trevor climbs back over the railing of the balcony and lowers himself down. Jeremy walks over to the edge and looks down. He hadn’t heard a scream but he had to be sure. Trevor was fine though. He with his arms outstretched as though he wanted Jeremy to-”No way man, I’m not jumping.”

Trevor scoffed, “I don’t want you to jump! Just lower down the bags.”

Oh. That made a lot more sense. He huffed none the less, couldn’t give Trevor the satisfaction of knowing that Jeremy knows he’s an idiot.

So they begin the tedious job of lowering the bags down. They’re full of breakables so Jeremy can’t just throw them like he wants to. Instead he has to tie the rope to each of the bags individually and then carefully lower each one down until Trevor can reach it. It takes a painstaking amount of time - there are so many bags and Trevor insists on Jeremy tying the bags in a specific way that takes forever to untie.

“That’s it!” Jeremy yells triumphantly as he lowers down the last one.

“Now you can jump,” Trevor calls back.

“Ha ha.” The climb down isn’t nearly as bad as he remembered climbing up was. Maybe it was because going down isn’t nearly as hard as going up. Maybe he’d just gotten used to the two hundred foot drop when he was dropping the endless bags down it. Who knows.

In the apartment Trevor changes into a three piece suit he’d apparently come in wearing. Something about looking less suspicious. Jeremy puts his shirt on right side in and forward, he can be less suspicious too.

“So,” Trevor hoists a duffel bag onto his shoulder, “What’d you think?”

It takes him a moment to realize that Trevor said anything -Jeremy’s been busying himself with trying to move two rolling bags and two duffel bags at the same time. “Huh? Uh, I mean… It’s not bad.”

“Not bad? As in,” Trevor takes a rolling bag from Jeremy, “Good?”

“I guess.” He shrugs halfly. “Do you think we’ll have to take a second trip?”

Trevor glances sideways at him, hoisting a bag over himself. “Maybe you’ll come along next time?”

“Yeah, sure,” Jeremy says. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“You don’t have to fight,” Trevor says.

“Maybe not” But he likes fighting. He can help Trevor out, sure, but in the end Jeremy fights. That’s just who he is.

They walk along the hallway to the elevator.


End file.
